Family Mellmann

I drove to Billings today to take care of some rental business and on my way back I stopped off in Absarokee to see if the cold and wind slowed down our progress.  From a distance, it didn't look like much had changed, but when I pulled up in front of the house I was greeting by a brand new front door! Inside the garage were stacks of sheetrock (drywall to some of you) ready for installation.  They guys were out back bringing in sheeetrock and stacking what is needed for each room. It looks like all the missing doors and windows have arrived.  The front door is installed.  The pedestrian door in the garage came but isn't installed yet.  The windows that go around the front door are here now.  And the replacement windows (a mistake was made on the arch windows) for the back side of the house have come.  Oh, and we were missing one picture window which has now also arrived. This is the window that will go above the front door.  That looks pretty hea...

It has been a few weeks since I last visited our construction site.  Between the Christmas/New Year's holiday slowdown and a little baby distraction (my builder is a new "again" dad!), things have just been plodding along. Today was a fabulous day to visit.  With 50 degree weather and a sunny blue sky, the guys were busy working on manual truss work (where manufactured trusses wouldn't work) on the back of the house (where it's sunny).  The posts and horizontal "gluelam" beams for the porch roof have arrived so the crew is trying to finish the roofing while we have this great weather. I spotted some of the posts in the garage.  These should be really nice when they're all stained. This made me laugh.  There were three buckets on the patio catching drips from the...from the...I'm not sure why they were catching the water from the trusses...other than to keep the patio from getting muddy?  The covered porch is starting to take shape. The back patio...

Moving from Vermont to Montana involves more than just packing up our clothes and furniture and shipping it across the country.  There is also the business to move.  But when your business is rental real estate, you can't just pack it up and ship it.  So, we are gradually selling our Vermont properties as we shift our business to Montana. Just before Christmas, we closed on the purchase of our first Montana rental property.  It is a four-unit apartment building in a charming planned community with shopping, dining, playground, and an elementary school all within walking distance.  Located on the southwest end of Billings, the community is outside of the downtown area but has easy access to it.  So, as we wind down the work of Covered Bridge Apartments in Vermont, we are pleased to introduce you to Lost Sheep Rentals.  Like Covered Bridge, Lost Sheep is the management arm of the business. This is the new building. Each unit has a Master Bedroom with pri...

It has been reasonably quiet around here lately; well, quiet in terms of nothing interesting to report.  So, here is a little update on the not-worth-a-whole-post happenings. December 31st; I came home from running errands to find a herd of deer relaxing in our "yard".  About six of them got up and moved away but these two were pretty committed to staying put just outside our door. January 5th; We got a good Montana snow!  Montana has a completely different attitude toward snow from what we were used to in Vermont.  In Vermont, the municipalities would run the snow plows until there was no snow left on the road and many towns would haul snow away to clear parking areas. In Montana, it is assumed that you drive a suitable vehicle for the environment and have the sense to put on good snow tires.  Chains are an option here as well as studded tires.  Meanwhile, it's every driver for themselves.  The state will make sure that at least one lane (each directi...